*** Doctor Doom (Classic) ***

Unknown

Colognoisseur wrote:

Preliminary Impressions of a 5/5/3 lvl 166 Doom

The short version is the purple is not the game changer it might seem. Dropping the blue to 3 might not be as effective. Black is still good after the slight nerf. Doom is not as much of an improvement as Loki was.

Since Loki was the worst 3* and Doom was on the verge of being playable, I would hope not!

Your analysis of the situations presented by his blue was unexpected, for me at least. Are you pretty set on 553 or do you still think there's a chance 355 (paired with better black abilities, providing a usable purple finisher) may turn out to be a better bet?

Colognoisseur

gamar wrote:

Colognoisseur wrote:

Preliminary Impressions of a 5/5/3 lvl 166 Doom

The short version is the purple is not the game changer it might seem. Dropping the blue to 3 might not be as effective. Black is still good after the slight nerf. Doom is not as much of an improvement as Loki was.

Since Loki was the worst 3* and Doom was on the verge of being playable, I would hope not!

Your analysis of the situations presented by his blue was unexpected, for me at least. Are you pretty set on 553 or do you still think there's a chance 355 (paired with better black abilities, providing a usable purple finisher) may turn out to be a better bet?

Beast was and is the worst 3* there is no reason to ever use him for anything. Loki with Patch was always a reasonable combo.

I think my most important takeaway was not to reduce blue. I think you might be right that 3/5/5 might be worth it. I would have to see the purple be more consistent at the 4-6 traps range by the time I cast it to think about changing it. This might just be a matter of how you see using him the most in your lineup. Summon demons is at least consistent and mostly more reliable damage unless Blade and Daken are hogging all the red.

Sandwichboy

LThor/Xforce/Doom. 3/5/5 Blue feeds black feeds...something useful. All colours are covered, all 3 have heavy hitting powers, not to mention cascades galore, and Diabolical Plot becomes the background nuke to squash a character when purple eventually reaches 10. Even on defence, it's scary, because the AI only has 1 purple power to think about, and in the time it takes for the AI to get 10 purple there's a very good chance he's got 4+ traps out. On offence, one technopathic strike is pretty much an auto win, and on defence...honestly I wouldn't want to even bother trying if I saw that team come up.

ronin_san

Sandwichboy wrote:

LThor/Xforce/Doom. 3/5/5 Blue feeds black feeds...something useful. All colours are covered, all 3 have heavy hitting powers, not to mention cascades galore, and Diabolical Plot becomes the background nuke to squash a character when purple eventually reaches 10. Even on defence, it's scary, because the AI only has 1 purple power to think about, and in the time it takes for the AI to get 10 purple there's a very good chance he's got 4+ traps out. On offence, one technopathic strike is pretty much an auto win, and on defence...honestly I wouldn't want to even bother trying if I saw that team come up.

I discovered this pre-purple w Doom. The benefit to having diversity is that if you net the AP right back, you're not going to do good dmg with a surgical strike. That is when you drop the Summon Demons. It works especially well against Daken, as you can remove the from the board and force him to take heat damage. You also get the right back for Demons, which will prevent Daken from getting strike tiles on green matches.

If you don't do a Summon Demons, you hold it. Then match to accrue --> Thor's --> -OR- Wolverine's to heal or to drop damage and generate cascades.

Or you can Call The Storm and hurt everybody. This group is phenomenal.

Unknown

The damage is 1100*(# of traps+1) though, not just number of traps. 5 traps would put it at 6600 and that's just not that hard to get. Unless the opponent also has an active purple, you're not particularly worried about taking some extra time after your 10 purple is ready because if the opponent disarms the traps that's like skipping the turn without an active purple and active purple powers are rare. It probably wouldn't work well against Loki but other than him, I can't think of another commonly used top tier character with purple (Nick Fury might be top tier, but I almost never see him in PvP). Now for PvE it's far more likely to encounter an active purple and that scaling and 5/5/5 tends to make any normally marginal power playable. It seems to me trying to actively match purple isn't necessarily a good idea with Doom. You should still focus on making good cascades and just let the traps/purple AP come in naturally, unless you're fighting someone who you need to race purple against (Loki in PvP, and considerably more guys in PvE).

ronin_san

Phantron wrote:

The damage is 1100*(# of traps+1) though, not just number of traps. 5 traps would put it at 6600 and that's just not that hard to get. Unless the opponent also has an active purple, you're not particularly worried about taking some extra time after your 10 purple is ready because if the opponent disarms the traps that's like skipping the turn without an active purple and active purple powers are rare. It probably wouldn't work well against Loki but other than him, I can't think of another commonly used top tier character with purple (Nick Fury might be top tier, but I almost never see him in PvP). Now for PvE it's far more likely to encounter an active purple and that scaling and 5/5/5 tends to make any normally marginal power playable. It seems to me trying to actively match purple isn't necessarily a good idea with Doom. You should still focus on making good cascades and just let the traps/purple AP come in naturally, unless you're fighting someone who you need to race purple against (Loki in PvP, and considerably more guys in PvE).

I'm on board with this. I mentioned in another thread that until I have more covers in Doom's purple, that I can't really know how powerful it is. I wish the traps did damage when the enemy matched them, but given that they're free, they'd soon become overpowering.

Unknown

Not sure if this is a bug or working as intended, but when Doom's trap tiles change colors, the traps remain, but they don't activate when his purple goes off (at least ones on TU tiles don't - not sure about other colors).

(Edit: Realize Orbalint posted the same thing).

Marc_Spector

Colognoisseur wrote:

I think my most important takeaway was not to reduce blue.

I agree 100% with Colognoisseur's assessment of keeping Doom's blue at 5, and was already planning to do-so before even getting to try out his new purple.

Doom was my 2nd maxed-out character a year ago, and a common complaint I used to (and still) see is that by the time you collect enough blue to cast it, there's barely any blue left on the board for it to be of use. I think that's become increasingly untrue the longer the game's been available, and with it the perpetually increasing roster of characters and number of powers that can steal, cause board shakeup, etc.

Doom's been on my back-bench for awhile, but I brought him out for several dozen test-fights the night his purple was released (varying partners as much as possible) and was happily surprised at how much faster and more useful his blue was than I already remembered it being. In prettymuch any group markup, it was very common after collecting 9 blue to very quickly see as much or more blue back on the board within a turn or two, resulting (after cast) in a black cascade netting more black than if I'd been prioritizing it to begin with (along with crits galore if used at the right/lucky time.)

As Cologn said, and as I'll paraphrase directed at the game in general, the potential of cascade-causing moves should absolutely not be underestimated. Remember how undervalued Mystique's blue was for the first week or two after her release?

I have no opinion yet on Doom's black vs purple, but am definitely keeping his blue at 5.

Unknown

After playing him through DP vs heroes a couple of times, I'm agreeing with Col that 5 in blue really is a must - I've frankly been really surprised at how often there's 10-11 blue on the board when I use it. However, I tended to have a LOT of traps out every single time I wanted to use his purple. Still don't know if I want 355 or 553 - You don't really "need" 5 in Summon Demons when it's paired with BR and it overlaps with other good blacks, but paired with Patch and Hood I was using Demons in almost every battle and Plot fairly infrequently (aside from times where the enemy was already so dead that plot only prevented a turn or two of match damage)

Unknown

Offense: Both Blue and Purple have the same problem in a slightly different way: you're taking away tiles that will power the ability. If you don't match purple right away, you'll end up matching away your own traps when trying to get the last few purple to cast it. However, it is a 4 match-3 move. Ultimately, it makes Doom feel more like a slow but powerful secondary attack. The 3rd ability makes him better on defense, as there's one more color you have to be aware of. For me, he seems like a black generator, and backup hitter on purple.

Defense: This makes Purple another color to semi-deny, as this ability is going to do some serious damage. Would make him much more scary against teams that don't have an active Purple or aren't focusing on it.

Unless you're focusing on the Blue->Demons combo for primary offense, I'm struggling to see the situation where 3/5/5 isn't optimal.

Marc_Spector

I'm really torn on black vs purple as well. I really think this could be a Torch black vs green situation where either one could be just fine based on one's preferred playstyle and teams of choice.

gamar, I had the same experience, using Summon Demons much more in my tests when grouped with Patch -- but I doubt I'd ever cast it over Surgical, Rage of the Panther, or Jab Jab Cross.

daibar, I think you may wind up being up right about 3/5/5 once more purple covers are out there and people can try out that power at max level in various offense/defense scenarios. At the very least, it's a rare purple damaging active, whereas there seem to be too many competing high-priority black abilities these days.

I wonder if a convincing argument could be made for 4/5/4 Doom. I guess we'll have to see the numbers/odds later. But I do think 5 blue is a must.

Phaserhawk

Marc Spector wrote:

I'm really torn on black vs purple as well. I really think this could be a Torch black vs green situation where either one could be just fine based on one's preferred playstyle and teams of choice.

gamar, I had the same experience, using Summon Demons much more in my tests when grouped with Patch -- but I doubt I'd ever cast it over Surgical, Rage of the Panther, or Jab Jab Cross.

daibar, I think you may wind up being up right about 3/5/5 once more purple covers are out there and people can try out that power at max level in various offense/defense scenarios. At the very least, it's a rare purple damaging active, whereas there seem to be too many competing high-priority black abilities these days.

I wonder if a convincing argument could be made for 4/5/4 Doom. I guess we'll have to see the numbers/odds later. But I do think 5 blue is a must.

Blue at level 5 only helps you out 43% of the time, because that's how often there would be 10 or more blue on the board at any one giving time. Basically you would max blue for the scenarios that they are 10-11 blue's on the board because the odds of there being 12 or more without warping the board via a color generator is 19.61% of the time. Taking NP's cascade generator, you can see the rates of return on high numbered things starts to decrease, in other words blowing up 5 tiles vs. 8 is going to be huge in cascade potentially, but blowing up 9 vs. 11 isn't going to net you much more, so Blue at level 4 helps you 57% of the time and in the other 43% you are only looking at maybe 2.5 more tiles converted. Add to the fact you have been matching blue to get it and the odds of there being more than 9 tiles is probably much lower than 43%, that's why I think you would be best served with Doom being 4/4/5 or 5/3/5.

Dayv

Here are some stats on Doctor Doom's blue, derived from NorthernPolarity's awesome simulator data.


One cover:
51.2% cascade chance
4.2 average tiles destroyed

Two covers:
57.5% cascade chance
5.1 average tiles destroyed

Three covers:
62.5% cascade chance
6.0 average tiles destroyed

Four covers:
66.0% cascade chance
6.7 average tiles destroyed

Five covers:
70.9% cascade chance
8.3 average tiles destroyed

The percentage increases are somewhat linear, but the increase in average tiles destroyed from 4 to 5 is the largest jump it makes.

Of course, this assumes a properly random board rather than one starved for blue, but it's only starved for blue if you've been rushing this skill. If it's a secondary priority, you'll probably have a good mix of tiles out when you're ready to use it. If it's not the right board, make a couple of non-blue matches to improve it.

Personally, I think five in blue is non-negotiable. 3/5/5 and 5/5/3 are both strong, and a compromise build of 4/5/4 might not be the worst ever.

It is interesting that all three of Doom's skills are best used with a bit of patience or planning. You might want to wait for less ready red matches, more blue tiles, or more traps to maximize their effectiveness, or you might want to strike as soon as you can before the tide turns against you. This suits Doom's character really well.

Unknown

Technopathic Strike is a pretty hard skill to gauge. If you're just using it whenever there are 9 or more blue tiles on the board it's really not that great and you shouldn't care whether it's level 3 or 5. However, if you have Technopathic Strike at level 5 then there exists some really awesome board state to use Technopathic Strike that can only be guaranteed by a level 5 Technopathic Strike. This really doesn't happen very often as you need a large number of black and blue and they've to be lined up in a way where converting all of them to black matters. It probably matters more for PvE where you really need that 20 black chain reaction, while on PvP you can usually just go with the expected average and it'd be good enough if it can fire off a Summon Demons or whatever black move you're planning to use.

Sandwichboy

Phaserhawk wrote:

Marc Spector wrote:

I'm really torn on black vs purple as well. I really think this could be a Torch black vs green situation where either one could be just fine based on one's preferred playstyle and teams of choice.

gamar, I had the same experience, using Summon Demons much more in my tests when grouped with Patch -- but I doubt I'd ever cast it over Surgical, Rage of the Panther, or Jab Jab Cross.

daibar, I think you may wind up being up right about 3/5/5 once more purple covers are out there and people can try out that power at max level in various offense/defense scenarios. At the very least, it's a rare purple damaging active, whereas there seem to be too many competing high-priority black abilities these days.

I wonder if a convincing argument could be made for 4/5/4 Doom. I guess we'll have to see the numbers/odds later. But I do think 5 blue is a must.

Blue at level 5 only helps you out 43% of the time, because that's how often there would be 10 or more blue on the board at any one giving time. Basically you would max blue for the scenarios that they are 10-11 blue's on the board because the odds of there being 12 or more without warping the board via a color generator is 19.61% of the time. Taking NP's cascade generator, you can see the rates of return on high numbered things starts to decrease, in other words blowing up 5 tiles vs. 8 is going to be huge in cascade potentially, but blowing up 9 vs. 11 isn't going to net you much more, so Blue at level 4 helps you 57% of the time and in the other 43% you are only looking at maybe 2.5 more tiles converted. Add to the fact you have been matching blue to get it and the odds of there being more than 9 tiles is probably much lower than 43%, that's why I think you would be best served with Doom being 4/4/5 or 5/3/5.

A lot of people also forget that how much blue is on the board is only half of the effectiveness of the skill. WHERE the blue is on the board, and how much black there is, is just as if not more important than how much blue is being converted. I've had Technopathic strike cause an almost complete board clear from as little as 6 blue scattered, but still in proximity to a lot of black. As DayvBang pointed out, Doom is a finesse character, and one that is far more dangerous if allowed to hold back for the right moment. The addition of an easily hard hitting purple when really strong purple skills are still in short supply is what's finally made him a top tier character.

Marc_Spector

Sandwichboy wrote:

A lot of people also forget that how much blue is on the board is only half of the effectiveness of the skill. WHERE the blue is on the board, and how much black there is, is just as if not more important than how much blue is being converted.

Agreed. As much as I always love seeing the hypothetical stats and odds per move, which helps me immensely with theorycrafting -- I find Doom's blue a bit trickier to "math-out" for this reason. It's not just a collect & fire, but one to hold on to, bide one's time, and strike while the iron is hot. Such are the machinations of DOOM.

NorthernPolarity

Well, I have the next couple weeks off for break. I'm going to work more on the simulator and program an AI so we can have stats like "Given that blue is the 4th color I prioritize, how many blue tiles will be on the board on average once I get 9 blue?" Should help us figure out if 3->5 blue is really worth it or not.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Well, I have the next couple weeks off for break. I'm going to work more on the simulator and program an AI so we can have stats like "Given that blue is the 4th color I prioritize, how many blue tiles will be on the board on average once I get 9 blue?" Should help us figure out if 3->5 blue is really worth it or not.

Since you most likely just removed 3 blue to get enough for Technopathic Strike the answer is almost certainly no more than 8.

Going from 3-5 on a simulator is never going to be favor of Technopathic Strike because it does depend on fairly unique board states to get the extra mileage out of the level 5. Having 5 in Technopathic Strike is more about the satisification of seeing everything going exactly according to the plan, even if the lesser version has about 80% chance of being just as good. It's almost certainly better to not have Technopathic Strike maxed from a math point of view but you can't put a value when that rare board comes up where you can channel your inner villian say, "Everything is going according to the plan MAWAHAHAHA".

NorthernPolarity

Phantron wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Well, I have the next couple weeks off for break. I'm going to work more on the simulator and program an AI so we can have stats like "Given that blue is the 4th color I prioritize, how many blue tiles will be on the board on average once I get 9 blue?" Should help us figure out if 3->5 blue is really worth it or not.

Since you most likely just removed 3 blue to get enough for Technopathic Strike the answer is almost certainly no more than 8.

Going from 3-5 on a simulator is never going to be favor of Technopathic Strike because it does depend on fairly unique board states to get the extra mileage out of the level 5. Having 5 in Technopathic Strike is more about the satisification of seeing everything going exactly according to the plan, even if the lesser version has about 80% chance of being just as good. It's almost certainly better to not have Technopathic Strike maxed from a math point of view but you can't put a value when that rare board comes up where you can channel your inner villian say, "Everything is going according to the plan MAWAHAHAHA".

You can math everything! The simulation could be "prioritizing blue 4th, getting to 9 blue, and then casting technopathic strike 5 turns later shifting your strategy to ignoring blue", which would model the filling the board up with blue plan more accurately.

Unknown

Marc Spector wrote:

Sandwichboy wrote:

A lot of people also forget that how much blue is on the board is only half of the effectiveness of the skill. WHERE the blue is on the board, and how much black there is, is just as if not more important than how much blue is being converted.

Agreed. As much as I always love seeing the hypothetical stats and odds per move, which helps me immensely with theorycrafting -- I find Doom's blue a bit trickier to "math-out" for this reason. It's not just a collect & fire, but one to hold on to, bide one's time, and strike while the iron is hot. Such are the machinations of DOOM.

Just finished running 166 5/3/5 Patch + 140 5/5/2 DD + non-5 blue Hood to 750 in the PvP tourney.

I think Marc Spector has it dead on; blue and purple are both slower moves that take some thinking+planning, but can completely swing the game. He feels like a "Timmy;" not consistent, but boy, can he bring the numbers when things line up. I usually run Patch with CMags, and DD feels about that power level, actually; CMags red is a bit better than DD blue (adds damage to the board shake, but less predictable cascades), CMags blue is about the same as DD purple (DD's is more powerful but less consistent), CMags yellow and DD black are both kinda eh. I think for killing 2's/low health 3's, I prefer CMags where I can end the game with one Berserker Rage alpha strike, but I like DD for taking on the Thors of the world where I'll need a few turns of strike tile match damage to close things out. Definitely think 3/5/5 is the preferred build.